


Rescued

by codswallop



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, No Spoilers, Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 04:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2415149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short h/c ficlet for Small_Hobbit's prompt "broken down car - either Lewis' or Hathaway's body in boot."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescued

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Small_Hobbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Small_Hobbit/gifts).



> No spoilers for series 7 here - I haven't seen it yet.
> 
> Many thanks to Small Hobbit for the prompt and for Britpicking! Really, I have always wanted to stuff poor Hathaway into the boot of a car; it was kind of you to give me an excuse.

Lewis knew he ought to wait for backup. It could be a trap, could be a bomb, he was surely destroying evidence if nothing else -- but he couldn’t, he found, he simply physically couldn’t stop himself from snatching up a crowbar and attacking the locked boot of the car with a strength he definitely hadn’t possessed an hour ago.

It didn’t open properly when the lock finally broke. It only yielded a crack. Lewis wedged his hand inside, frantically scrabbling for the release lever, hardly noticing when a jagged edge of metal caught at his skin except to rip it away in annoyance. 

Then the mechanism gave way with a clunk, and the lid of the boot was heavy and loose in his grasp. He paused for a moment first, heart hammering. Whatever was inside was silent and still. With a sudden heavy sinking certainty, he made himself finish what he’d started.

Hathaway was there, of course, curled on his side, sickeningly still and white. His eyes were shut, the lids bruise-dark, and Lewis found himself thinking that it was a mercy. The fact that he was in one piece, even, was an unlooked-for blessing, so that at least his sleepless nights from now on wouldn’t hold that particular horror for him to have to remember --except that they would, wouldn’t they, he hadn’t had to see Val’s last sufferings in order to imagine them in livid detail--

Hathaway stirred, then, and gave a faint moan.

Lewis wasn’t sure, later on, how he got James’s limp tangle of limbs out of the boot, except that it was probably inelegant and certainly ill-advised. The next day his back would ache mightily, but at the time he was only cognisant of an overpowering wave of joy mingled with remnants of terror, and the simple physical relief of James’ body gathered in against his own. 

“Are you hurt, lad? Can you move, can you speak? What happened, what did he--” A small part of Lewis stood aside and was shocked at himself for the unprofessional display, but most of him was focused on trying to find Hathaway’s pulse, push up his eyelids, and check him for injuries all at once. 

“Drugged,” James said thickly. “Don’t. Go.”

“I won’t, I won’t,” Lewis assured him, but James shook his head, with what looked like a terrible effort. 

“No, you have to--go. After him. Only did this to...distract. You.”

“Well, then, it worked,” Lewis said, but he paused to fumble his phone out of his jacket and call for an ambulance and Innocent, in that order. 

“And you’ve been hurt, too,” he accused Hathaway, looking closely at him again when he’d done. “There’s blood-- Oh. No, that’s mine.”

Hathaway’s eyes flew open and struggled to focus. “Where? Why?”

“Nothing, no, only me hand--must have nicked it on something getting the boot open. It’s fine.” He held it up, displaying the shallow gash across his palm, but Hathaway continued to frown at him in apparent dismay. “Just a scratch,” Lewis assured him. 

Hathaway groped for the injured hand, bringing it closer to his face for owlish inspection, and then he did an odd thing: he licked at the cut, then pressed his lips lingeringly to the spot -- the strangest, most unsettling sensation -- it sent a bright arrow straight down through Lewis’s guts.

“You daft sod,” Lewis said, laughing a little, and James nodded and smiled woozily up at him, and that was it, the absolute final straw. He couldn’t help leaning over to plant a kiss on him then, any more than he could have stopped himself picking up the crowbar -- and kissing, kissing, kissing him in the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles as they arrived, deaf to their wails and not caring who in the wide world might see.


End file.
